The Best French Onion Soup Recipe

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Are you on the hunt for the Best French Onion Soup Recipe? Look no further, this delicious made from scratch recipe topped with homemade focaccia bread will be your new favorite!

Are you on the hunt for the Best French Onion Soup Recipe? Look no further, this delicious made from scratch recipe topped with homemade focaccia bread will be your new favorite! #frenchonionsoup #fromscratch #souprecipes #frenchonion #homemadefrenchonion

The Best French Onion Soup

As winter nears, I always crave rich, warm soups for lunch and dinner. One of my favorite soups is French Onion Soup. I have taken this classic dish and added a few tweaks to make it the Best French Onion Soup Recipe, you’ve ever tasted.

What’s the difference? A hearty serving of sweet, thinly sliced onions, a rich red wine (optional) and salty broth and fresh-baked focaccia bread on top. I love the focaccia bread, since it is denser than crunchy bread, without getting soggy. In my opinion, gruyère cheese is the best pairing for this soup, but if not available, swiss or mozzarella are also a good choice. 

I make this soup in ramekins, but you can also pour the soup into oven-safe bowls instead. Or you can skip the bread, and simply eat the soup by itself! If you don’t want to cook with wine, you can substitute the wine for more beef broth.

–Don’t forget dessert! Go check out what makes these The Best Fudge Brownies Recipe!

The Best French Onion Soup Recipe

What You Need:

For the Soup:

  • 4 large sweet onions
  • 4 tbsp butter
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 4 cups beef broth

For the Bread:

  • 1 (.25 oz) pack of active dry yeast
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp sugar

On top:

  • Slices of gruyère, swiss or mozzarella cheese

How to make the bread: 

Combine yeast and water in a medium-sized bowl and let dissolve for 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and mix until incorporated and smooth. Cover bowl with a clean towel and let sit for about 30 minutes, until the dough has doubled in size. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Once the dough has risen, turn onto a well-floured surface, and roll into a rectangular shape with a rolling pin or a sturdy glass. Place dough on a baking sheet or stone and bake for 20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Once baked, cut out circular shaped pieces of bread to fit on top of the ramekin.

best french onion soup recipe

How to make french onion soup from scratch:

Slice onions into thin crescent-shaped slices. In a large pan, melt butter over low heat, then add onions and salt, and let caramelize on low, for about 30 minutes. Add wine and broth and cook over medium heat until reduced by a third.

Pour soup into the ramekins, until 2/3rds full. Top with bread, then cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 5-10 minutes, or until cheese has melted.

best french onion soup recipe

Need to print this to add to your Recipe Binder? Get the simple french onion soup recipe below:

French Onion Soup
4 from 2 votes
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The Best French Onion Soup Recipe

Ingredients

For the Soup:

  • 4 large sweet onions
  • 4 tbsp butter
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 4 cups beef broth

For the Bread:

  • 1 .25 oz pack of active dry yeast
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp sugar

On top:

  • Slices of gruyère swiss or mozzarella cheese

Instructions

How to make the bread:

  1. Combine yeast and water in a medium-sized bowl and let dissolve for 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and mix until incorporated and smooth. Cover bowl with a clean towel and let sit for about 30 minutes, until the dough has doubled in size. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Once the dough has risen, turn onto a well-floured surface, and roll into a rectangular shape with a rolling pin or a sturdy glass. Place dough on a baking sheet or stone and bake for 20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Once baked, cut out circular shaped pieces of bread to fit on top of the ramekin.

How to make french onion soup from scratch:

  1. Slice onions into thin crescent-shaped slices. In a large pan, melt butter over low heat, then add onions and salt, and let caramelize on low, for about 30 minutes. Add wine and broth and cook over medium heat until reduced by a third.
  2. Pour soup into the ramekins, until 2/3rds full. Top with bread, then cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 5-10 minutes, or until cheese has melted.

Looking for more soup recipes to keep you warm these cold winter days? Here are some to try!

Crockpot Cheeseburger Soup
Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup
Crockpot Chicken Rice Soup
Cream of Potato Soup
Homemade Mushroom Soup
Creamy Chicken and Noodles Soup
Homemade Vegetable Soup

Trying to plan better, more frugal meals for your family so that you always have a warm meal on the table and aren’t wasting money at the grocery store? You’ve got to check out my ebook Meal Planning Made Simple. Even if you thought meal planning didn’t work for your family, this ebook will help you find the perfect fit for your family’s style.

Does your family enjoy soup in the winter? What are their favorite kinds?

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This Best French Onion Soup Recipe was originally published on Little House Living in November 2013. It has been updated as of November 2019.

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25 Comments

  1. Believe it or not, I’ve only ever had French onion soup once. But this looks so amazing!
    Do you think that using regular yellow onions would alter the taste too much? (Because that’s what I have)

  2. Just this week I was thinking about what kind of soup I could make with beef broth. I never even thought to make this at home. I can’t wait to try. Thank you for sharing!

  3. This is my husband’s favorite soup and I’ve never made it for him. This recipe looks doable…pinning to try later!

  4. Fabulous looking soup! I’m pretty sure I could live off French onion soup and nothing else. Stopping by from the Thrifty Thursday link up over at Living Well, Spending Less.

  5. We still have onions from our harvest and I can’t wait to make this soup, it looks wonderful! Hope you are staying warm and cozy in this cold weather and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
    Come Back Soon!
    Miz Helen

  6. French onion soup is one of my favourite winter comfort foods. But so is pumpkin soup. In fact I have the ingredients ready to put together as I write (paused to enjoy a cuppa). Here, in Australia, butternut is classed as a pumpkin, which is just as well as the only one that used to be available in the country areas was the famous Queensland Blue (gorgeous flavour, but you need an axe to get into it). I always add some curry powder to my pumpkin soup. Oh, I’m so glad that autumn is upon us and I can forget the lettuce for a while.

  7. Beef broth makes it not vegetarian but I am eager to try this recipe with vegetable broth instead. I am thinking maybe even mushroom stock!? 🙂
    I am having fun looking at all the neat things on your blog.

  8. Omg, so so good!!thank you!!I used soy sauce and brown sugar while caramelizing as well as three different salts for different flavor levels within my reduced sodium beef stock. Yummy!!!

  9. Hey, This recipe sounds amazing, but what would be a good substitution for the Red Wine? My mother will not by wine cause she doesn’t want people to think she drinks. . .

  10. Can you tell me please how many servings this recipe makes so I will know how many bowls to have ready and how many guests may be served?
    Thank you!

  11. hi Merissa, love this recipe! Made it last night but forgot to save it to my Pinterest and then it took me 15 minutes to find it this morning. Moving it to your soup category might make it easier to find, and because it has beef stock it is not a vegetarian dish. My granddaughter was here over the thanksgiving break, she is a vegetarian and boy was it hard cooking that meal. I didn’t realize so many things have meat products. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

  12. Your French Onion Soup looks delicious. Thanks so much for sharing with us at Full Plate Thursday. Have a great weekend and come back soon!
    Miz Helen

  13. This french onion soup looks so tasty, perfect for a cool fall night! Thank you so much for sharing with us at Dishing It & Digging It. Hope to see you back again this week 🙂

  14. 3 stars
    The soup is good but it’s missing something. I can’t put my finger on what’s missing. Something to make it a bit richer.